“I'm going to kill him, simple as that,” I fumed. Betrayal was not something I took lightly, especially when it nearly cost me everything. I was lucky enough to have someone with me to re-confirm the truth. Someone who was now trying to stop me from being sent to jail for manslaughter.
“Calm down, dude. If you think about it, what he did really wasn't all that bad,” Chris said with as much conviction as he could muster.
I stopped my death walk and turned to him. “I'm pretty sure I misheard you. Did you just say it isn't really all that bad?” He nodded his head meekly and mine shook in disbelief. “I understand that you are a very forgiving person, but even you have to realize that betraying a friend is not something that should be forgiven so easily. He blatantly went out of his way to sabotage my life and now he has to pay,” I explained as I resumed my aggressive walk. Everyone who saw me coming their way quickly got out of my way. Everyone except Josh, who failed to notice his executioner approaching him. Chris tried one last time to reason with me.
“He's not worth it, Nathan. Just walk away, cool off, and forget him.” He raised some valid points, but I had one of my own.
“He needs to be taught a lesson and I'm in the perfect position to teach him that lesson,” I responded coldly. I pushed past Chris and rushed at Josh. Before he could even turn to see what was stomping up behind him, I landed a vicious hit to the back of his head. His entire body fell to the ground and he didn't get back up. I stood there staring at him, just waiting for him to try to get back up. I even taunted him a little. After about half a minute I realized that he was unconscious, so I started to walk away. As I did, I told Chris to stay with Josh until he regained consciousness so that he could tell Josh what happened and why. With that bit of business wrapped up, I headed home.
My body seemed to be on auto-pilot on the walk home. My body reacted on instinct while my mind recounted the events that had transpired in the last few hours. I had been trying to come up with my next comic book idea when everyone burst into my home. My entire circle of friends (minus Josh) were yelling something along the lines of “YOU BASTARD!” and “I HATE YOU!”. It would have been kind of amusing if I didn't immediately understand that it wasn't some kind of prank. After I let them spew their hatred and calm themselves down, they finally explained why they all wanted my head on a pike. Their stories ranged from causing small amounts of random stress in their lives to try and make them snap, to directly sabotaging everything they cared about. The only question I had for any of them was had anything in their lives actually changed. They, unsurprisingly, answered no. They were all just told that I was PLANNING to do these things. It took about two minutes to figure out who had been spreading lies about me. And that's about where this story began, with me going on my march of death towards the son of a bitch that nearly took away everyone I cared about.
I stopped walking and leaned against a tree, focusing on what I had just realized. My “friends” were very quick to jump to the worst possible conclusion when it came to me. It was almost like they didn't trust me or something. No, it wasn't that it seemed like they didn't trust me, it was that they didn't trust me. They were quick to believe the weakest of lies and didn't even try to figure out if it was true or not. Well to hell with them. I don't need friends that are more than willing to be my enemies at the drop of a hat.
“You seem to think you know a lot about friendship.” I looked around to see who had spoken, but I didn't see anyone around. “Up here.” I looked up and sure enough there was someone up in the tree next to me. I couldn't really tell what they looked like, but they seemed to just radiate mischievousness.
“What are you talking about?” I questioned. I was a little frightened by what this person had just said. I hadn't been speaking out loud so how would they know what I was thinking about.
“I'll answer those in order: Firstly, I'm talking about how you seem to think you know how friends should act. You have a point with thinking that friends aren't supposed to turn on you at the first chance they get, but other than that you have no idea what true friendship is. Now secondly, it's because you are thinking so loud,” they covered their ears and made a face like they were in pain. “It would be very difficult for me not to know what you were thinking.”
“And now this conversation is over. Have fun scaring other people, you weirdo,” I said and then presumed walking. They, however, leapt down from the tree and landed directly in front of me, cutting me off. They looked at me and flashed an impish smile.
“Well that's not a very nice way to end a pleasant conversation. Besides, I'm not done talking to you yet.” They took a step closer and I took a few step back. I had no idea what this person was planning, but I sure as hell wasn't going to let them get close enough to try it. “Why so scared? Couldn't you just handle me like you handled Josh?” There's that grin again. I shook when I saw it. Something about this person (other than just creepiness) was scaring the crap out of me. I could feel my adrenaline kicking in and my fight or flight response starting to take hold. “Come now Nathan, there's no need to be afraid of me...” They drifted off on the last word as they took on a more menacing look.
“W-who said I was afraid?”
“Oh don't play dumb Nathan, it's not becoming of you to pretend as though you aren't. Everyone is afraid of the unknown, of the weird, of chaos.” They put a lot of emphasis on that last word, almost like it was a hint towards something.
“Look, I don't know who you are, or what you want, but you should just leave me alone.”
“Oh this isn't about what I want, it's about what you want.” They kept flashing that evil, unsettling, impish grin at me.
“W-what I want? What they heck are you talking about?” I could no longer move. This person had me so frightened that I was scared stiff.
“You just made up your mind to no longer associate yourself with your 'friends', as you put it. This obviously means that you are going to want new ones. I'm here to help with that.” None of this made sense to me anymore. This person inspired fear in me that froze me in place and yet, here they were offering to help me replace my old friends.
“What's the catch? I can tell that you aren't the kind of person to give freely out of the kindness of your heart.”
“Oh you wound me with your words. Here I am, a kind stranger, offering to help you make some new friends, and you accuse me of having a 'catch'. No wonder your friends were so quick to turn on you. You probably treated them like you are treating me right now.” They threw on an extremely fake hurt expression and did the whole puppy dog eyes routine. I'd be lieing if I said it didn't work at all. I actually felt a little bad for insinuating he had an alterior motive.
“Look I'm sorry for being so rude. I'd be grateful if you were to help me.” I smiled a genuine smile. They flashed that damned impish grin again and raised their left hand to snap their fingers. It turned into what looked to be a paw of some kind.
“Oh you are just going to love your new friends. They'll show you what friendship truly is. Ta-ta now.” And with a snap of his fingers I was gone, with no mark of me ever being there.
